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The first time Jisung spoke to Felix, he introduced himself as Peter. Stood on the stage alongside all the other Korean students who had signed up to be ‘buddies’ to the foreign exchange students for the semester. He didn’t necessarily put himself forward for the job, his friend Jeongin basically forced him to participate with him, there was also the enticement that it’ll look good on his resume, as well as the fact Jisung would be paid little money for very little work.

Jisung repeated what he was going to say in his head, looking down at his feet so he didn’t have to face the blearing eyes of the one hundred international students in the room. Once it was finally his turn, known to him by the sharp elbow to his side to gain his attention. He looked up, avoiding eye contact with all the eyes looking his way.

Taking a deep breath, Jisung took a step forward and gave a short wave. “ What’s up, guys. I’m Jisung but you can call me Peter. I hope you guys have a great time in Korea” He spoke in perfect English, after spending a semester in Malaysia the previous year on his own exchange, Jisung had improved his English a lot and was now more than confident when it came to speaking in his second language.

He made sure to look around the room to all of the eyes that were focused on him so that he wasn’t just staring at one particular person. However, he did try to avoid eye contact at all costs.

Thinking that he’d done a good enough job at introducing himself, Jisung gave a satisfied nod and stepped back into the line with his peers.

Once the introductions were given, Jisung had to sit through a gruelling talk about the basic information of the semester, as well as health and safety precautions the international students had to take. Jisung spent this time looking at the faces in the audience. He had yet to introduce himself to the student who he would have to be a buddy for during the semester.

All Jisung knew was that he was called Felix and that he was from Australia. His eyes scanned the crowd to look for someone who would fit the description Jisung assumed to be Australian - blond, wavy hair, someone who looked like they’d just stepped off the beach. 

There was a guy at the front who stereotypically looked like he was from Australia with his large arm muscles and shoulder-length hair. Yup, he definitely has to be Felix.

After the orientation lecture and all the students were allowed to leave after being told to make contact with their Korean buddy. Jisung waited outside the building and stood leaning against a wall waiting for Felix to come to him. 

It had been over five minutes of Jisung waiting against the wall, watching the international students talking to their own Korean buddies, that Jisung thought that maybe Felix didn’t want to talk to him, that he was too independent and didn’t need Jisung’s help or friendship.

“Hey, Jisung right?”

A deep voice interrupted Jisung’s staring as his attention was brought onto the guy in front of him. The voice of the man in front of him didn’t match his appearance at all. His deep voice contrasted with his blond hair and angelic facial features. 

The man in front of him was ethnically Korean and spoke to him in Korean, so naturally, Jisung assumed that he was one of the members of the International Student Club that had come up to Jisung to ask him a question.

“Yeah?” Jisung raised an eyebrow in question, he didn’t know why anyone was coming up to him to ask questions, there were many other people this person could’ve gone to to ask for help.

“I thought it would be easy enough to find you with the rainbow hoodie you’re wearing,” He gestures to Jisung’s outfit, “but I didn’t think to look away from the crowd of people over there.” 

“Wait, what?” 

“Oh, shoot. I didn’t introduce myself, did I? I’m Felix, I’m Korean if you can’t already tell, but I’m Australian born and raised, and I’m your buddy.” The man -Felix- held his hand out for Jisung to shake, his hand was warm and soft and surprisingly small.

“You speak good Korean.” Jisung pointed out dumbly, as soon as he said it he regretted his words. Of course, Felix spoke good Korean, he was talking to him fluently and now Jisung just looked like an idiot for stating the obvious.

Felix laughed light and airy. “Thank you, I grew up mainly speaking Korean with my family so it’s almost second nature to do so.”

Jisung nodded in response, not trusting his mouth for a moment to not embarrass himself again. 

The two made casual small talk - what they’re studying, what made Felix come to Korea, which dormitory he was staying in, what he was most looking forward to from the semester. Just the basics that Jisung thought would keep a conversation going, he was naturally more reserved, always letting his friends lead a conversation while he smiled and added the odd comment.

Luckily, Felix seemed like the kind of person who could easily make friends through his bubbly personality and approachable appearance.

“Hey Felix, are you ready to go for lunch?” A voice called out in English.

Jisung’s gaze looked towards the voice to see a Korean boy coming towards them with a bright smile on his face, he walked alongside Jeongin; Jisung’s friend who was the person who convinced him to join him and volunteer to be a part of the International Student Club. He smiled at his friend in acknowledgement, who returned the smile with a wide grin that reached his eyes. 

Clearly Felix knew the boy with Jeongin, he threw his hand up in a wave. “ Hey, Seungmin. Give me two seconds and then we can go.”

The two boys made their way up to Jisung and Felix. Seungmin waved and introduced himself to Jisung, his smile drew attention to his boyish charm. “Hi, I’m Seungmin. I’m from America but I was born in Korea, and now I’m back again to experience more of my culture, as my Mom puts it. It’s nice to meet you.”  

“ Hi, Seungmin. I’m Jisung, Felix’s Korean buddy .” He smiled at the exchange student, eyes flitted between him and Jeongin stood next to him. “ I see you’ve met Jeongin. Be careful around him, Seungmin, he will give you a constant headache. Trust me, I’ve been suffering for years.”

“Jeongin could never annoy me.” Seungmin ruffled the younger’s hair, making him groan and pull away from Seungmin’s touch. “ He may be my buddy, but I bet that I’ll annoy him more than he could annoy me.”

“Great.” The youngest mumbled, but he said it with no malicious intent because Jisung knew his best friend and knew that he secretly loved being teased and making friends with people who were just as playful as he was.

Felix explained that Seungmin lived on the same floor as him and his roommate, Chan. And that they’d quickly become friends after Seungmin knocked on his door asking for help to remove the spider from his bathroom. 

“Lix, we should get going.” Seungmin pointed over his shoulder to the direction of the front of the campus. “I feel like people in Busan will be able to hear Jeongin’s stomach if we wait any longer.” He teased, poking the younger’s stomach with a finger that Jeongin swatted away. 

“Jisung you should come with us!” Felix grabbed and shook his arm lightly. It seemed strange to Jisung that someone he had just met was holding onto him and eager to spend time with him. But Jisung blamed that on Felix’s first day excitement. “ Jisung can come with us right?” This was directed at Jeongin and Seungmin. 

“Yeah of course.”

“ Hyung please come with us, my brain shuts off if I use English for too long.” 

Jeongin had his hands clasped together and widened his eyes in the way that made it impossible for Jisung to deny him of what he wanted. 

Jisung thought of his options; he had no plans for the rest of the day, and if he were to say no and go home then he would’ve just eaten ramen from the convenience store. “Sure, I could do with some lunch.” He shrugged, brushing it off that he was hungry and not the fact that there were two sets of puppy dog eyes eager for him to say yes. 

After the meal Jisung was thankful that he didn’t pass on the opportunity. It turned out that Seungmin and Felix had no complaints about the restaurant that Jisung suggested going to. The exchange students were excited to know about the best places in Seoul for different things. To which Jisung and Jeongin tried to answer all of their questions. 

During lunch, Jisung noticed that Felix got overly excited about the smallest of things, like… “It’s different from home.” He said. 

The Australian made Jisung laugh throughout the entire meal to which at one point he choked on his food. After that Felix toned down his jokes until Jisung had finished eating. 

That afternoon Jisung went home with a stomach full of tteokbokki, a new kakao id in his phone and the promise of a new friendship.

1

One week into the semester Jisung received a message from Felix on kakaotalk asking the older if he wanted to come out with Felix and his friends for a night in Itaewon.

“I don’t know, Felix. I’m not really the partying type.” Jisung said over the phone, deciding to call the younger to reject him gently, rather than bluntly through text.

“Oh c’mon Jisung, I promise it’ll be fun. I won’t force you to drink more than your limit of soju and I won’t leave your side the entire night. Though I can’t say the same about Chris.” Felix laughed, talking about his roommate and friend from Australia; Chan; otherwise known as Chris when he introduced himself to Jisung during the orientation campus tour. 

Jisung bit his lip in hesitation, playing with the loose strand on the bottom of his jumper. He contemplated whether to give in to Felix’s offer, despite not being the type to go clubbing, Jisung wondered if he would be missing out on anything. 

Jisung hadn’t been to a club since his first week of his second year of university where he had an awful time that involved drinking too much alcohol, not remembering how he got back to his dorm and spending the entirety of the next day hugging the toilet bowl; something he certainly didn’t want a repeat of. But that was over two year ago, now preferring to go to bars with his friends, as he knew that clubbing wasn’t for him. However, for some reason, Jisung felt like he could believe Felix when he said that he wouldn’t leave his side.

“Fine!” He said exharently. “I’ll come, but if I’m not enjoying myself, I’ll leave early.”

“Han Jisung, I assure you that will not happen. Now, get ready, I’ll meet you at the subway station in an hour. Bye.” Felix said before hanging up the phone on Jisung, not even giving him the chance to say goodbye.

Jisung laid back on his bed and groaned, now he had the difficult task of deciding what to wear. What did people even wear when they went clubbing? He definitely couldn’t wear the sweats and oversized shirt he was currently wearing. 

After throwing half of his wardrobe onto the floor, Jisung found an outfit that he was satisfied with. He looked in the mirror and observed the skin-tight black jeans and striped shirt. Deciding that he looked ready to go to a club with a satisfied nod, he sent a quick message to Felix telling him he was on his way to the subway station.

Even though it was Felix who asked him to go out with him, Jisung was still surprised to see more people than just Felix waiting for him at the subway station. A wolf whistle was heard through the station and it took Jisung a second to realise that the whistle was directed towards him.

“Hey, Jisung. You look good.” Felix waved at Jisung, his eyes scanned Jisung’s outfit, before placing a small, soft smile on his face. “Let me introduce you to everyone. You already know Chris ,” Felix pointed at Chan, who looked the most ready for a night in Itaewon with his hair pushed back off his forehead and black shirt unbuttoned at the top to reveal half of his chest. “ And of course you already know Jeongin and Seungmin. ” He pointed at Jisung’s friend and his buddy, which made Jisung physically relax now knowing that his friend would be joining them for the night.

Felix continued making his way round the circle with his introductions, “this is Hyunjin, I met him when I forgot my card in the convenience store ,” he pointed to the boy next to Seungmin who had shoulder length hair that was tucked behind his ears, “ and this is Minho Hyung, he’s Chris’ buddy .” Surprisingly, Jisung recognised Minho from a couple of his classes, as well as from seeing him around campus.

“Hi, Minho Hyung.”

“Hey, Jisung, long time no see.”

“You two know each other?” Felix asked, wrapping one of his arms around Jisung’s shoulder. 

“Yeah, Sungie and I shared a class together last year, we worked together in a group project that made me want to claw my own eyes out.” Minho giggled.

“ Hey guys, can we go now? ” Chan interrupted, pointing behind himself to the gates of the subway, “ It’s great that we’re chatting but I’m way too sober right now.”

After a short subway ride that consisted of Jisung telling Chan and Felix to quiet down after seeing the stares they were getting from the people sitting next to them, they arrived in Itaewon. The main street was bustling with foreigners and locals alike, already stumbling as they made their way to a bar or club. Jisung was in awe of just how busy Itaewon was, considering it was still early in the evening. Even though they were in a large group, he didn’t want to get lost and left behind due to squeezing through the crowd to get to where they wanted to be.

As they made their way to the main street Chan insisted that before they went to any bars or clubs they needed to go to the convenience store to buy a drink.

The non-exchange students watched on in horror as Chan and Felix downed their bottles of Soju, having a competition as to who could finish their bottle first. From next to them, Seungmin shook his head in disappointment as he drank his soju bottle slower, more sophisticatedly to avoid the liquid from missing his mouth and spilling onto his clothing.

Gripping his bottle of beer tightly in his hand, Jisung took a sip and felt queasy as he watched the Australians wince as they finished the bottles. Wiping their mouths with the back of their hands, before they then grabbed their second bottle.

“Jisung do you want a sip?” Felix asked him, holding a bottle of grape flavoured soju out towards him.

“You do know that you’re supposed to drink soju out of a shot glass, right? Not just straight out of the bottle?” Jisung questioned eyeing the green bottle, taking it out of Felix’s smaller hand.

Felix rolled his eyes with a quiet laugh. “Yes Jisung, I’m aware, but it gets you drunk quicker. Plus, it’s a higher percentage.” He pointed to the alcohol percentage, then to the one on Jisung’s beer bottle, showing that it was significantly lower than the alcoholic percentage of soju. 

“Okay, okay. You put up a good argument, you’ve convinced me. I’ll have one sip.” Jisung closed his eyes and pressed the bottle up to his lips and took a drink. Jisung waited for the alcohol to burn his throat, but it never came. He opened his eyes slowly upon realizing that it was just like taking a shot of soju, except just from the bottle.

“See! Not so bad.” Felix patted him on the back, he took the bottle back off Jisung and offered it to everyone else who reacted similarly to Jisung.

Chan tilted his head back as he drank the remains of his bottle of beer. “ Okay, so who’s ready for club number one?” 

His question was met with a chorus of cheers, as they left the outside of the convenience store and made their way down the main street to the club that Minho had recommended.

-

Jisung had never been a fan of loud noises, nor was he a fan of enclosed spaces. So having both of those mixed into one was a bit of a nightmare for him. The club that they were currently in was underground, with very little lighting inside, which made it difficult for him to be able to see where he was going, as well as where his friends were. As most of them wandered off as soon they were inside, whether it being the bar or the dancefloor.

He thought about staying on the outskirts of the large crowd but then he would lose Felix and the others who were persistent in being in the dead centre of the people dancing.

“Why are you not dancing?” Felix’s voice was loud as his mouth was right next to Jisung’s ear.

“I can’t dance.” Jisung replied, his voice louder than intended to ensure that Felix heard him.

Felix leaned back with his eyebrows furrowed, his eyes looked down to where Jisung’s feet were planted still on the floor, then back up to Jisung’s face. Where the older was biting his bottom lip between his teeth nervously. 

Was Felix going to laugh at him because he couldn’t dance?

The younger leaned forward again and Jisung expected to hear an insulting remark, instead the younger said. “I’ll teach you.” 

Before Jisung could even reply Felix had his hands on Jisung’s shoulders and applied pressure trying to push him down. 

“What are you doing?” Jisung said through a laugh. “Do you want me to sit on the floor?”

“No, silly. The one thing people who say they can’t dance do is bounce from their knees. Like this.” Felix then demonstrated what he meant by bouncing up and down, following the rhythm of the song that was currently playing in the club. 

Jisung copied him, feeling a bit stupid that both of them were bobbing up and down on the dance floor. Once he found that he was in fact moving to the beat of the song playing through the speakers, Jisung felt himself relax and closed his eyes, taking in the English lyrics about getting wasted and forgetting about your worries.

“You’re doing great, you look like a professional dancer.”

Jisung opened his eyes at Felix’s comment, he could hear the sarcasm in his words based on the smirk on his face. “Yeah? Are you jealous?” Jisung raised an eyebrow at his friend and twirled to show off that, yes, he can now dance.

Felix’s eyes lowered over Jisung’s body as he twirled, “Yes, I’m incredibly jealous. I think I have some new competition with the way you’re eating up the dancefloor.” He laughed.

Unsurprisingly, Felix was a natural on the dance floor, every song that played Felix danced to with the same amount of energy as the previous song, he never stopped for a break or showed any signs that he was tired. 

And because of this, Felix gained the attention of multiple girls who danced their way over to them with the intention of Felix looking their way. It was either Felix had zero intention that night of talking to any girls or that he was just clueless to the attention he was getting but he declined every girl with a polite smile and remained with Jisung and the rest of their group. 

That couldn’t be said for Chan, who soon after they’d entered the club found himself dancing with his arms wrapped around the waist of a pretty girl with flirty eyes and a drunken smile. The pair danced with no thought to others around them, they moved close to Jisung. Too close that he had to put his arms up to stop Chan’s broad back from crashing into him.

“ Hey Chris, watch where you’re going.” Felix yelled over the music, pushing Chan and the girl away from their circle and back into the crowd that surrounded them. “Sorry about him, Chris has no spatial awareness once he’s drunk.” Felix apologised to Jisung, sincerity in his eyes as he apologised for his friend's drunkenness.

“It’s alright. Thank you for saving me.”

“Of course.” Felix smiled widely at him. “I was the one that dragged you out here tonight, so I want you to be comfortable and have a good time. Plus drunk people only think about themselves and not others so I need to look after you.” He stood back and paused, his brows furrowed as he thought before moving back to speak closer to Jisung. “Not saying you need someone to look after you like you’re some damsel in distress. It’s just that-”

“Felix.” Jisung interrupted, placing his hand on his friend's shoulder to cut off his rambling. “I get what you mean, thank you.”

It looked like Felix was going to say something else but the next song that played had a familiar beat, one that Jisung recognised from when he would hang out with the friends he made back in Malaysia. A smile made its way on his face as he thought about the memories associated with the song. ”I love this song.” He yelled over the music to Felix, the Australian’s lips turned upwards at Jisung’s enthusiasm and mirrored his face of excitement.

Maybe it was the alcohol in Jisung’s system finally kicking in. Or maybe it was because he’d gained the confidence to dance without thinking he looked stupid. Perhaps, it was just because he had Felix looking at him, encouraging him to let loose and enjoy the atmosphere of the club. Whatever reason it was, Jisung felt that he could just close his eyes and dance freely to his favourite song.

“Whoo, Jisung!” 

“Yes, Jisung, get it!”

“Sexy~”

Jisung opened his eyes to his friends' encouragement from within the circle they made on the dance floor. Hyunjin and Minho, similarly to Felix, were also amazing dancers so having the three of them praising him, Jisung felt his confidence rise. On the other hand, Seungmin and Jeongin were more the type of ‘let's just throw our limbs about and try not to whack anyone in the face’ kind of dancers. Which secretly made Jisung feel more at ease about his own way of dancing.

Throwing his arms up into the air Jisung moved into the middle of the circle and started to move his hips to what he hoped was along to the beat of the song. 

After that, Jisung continued to dance wildly and freely to any song that played, he didn’t even feel tired, too focused on the way his head felt light from the alcohol and his chest felt heavy from the bass boosting from the speakers and shaking the floorboards beneath his feet.

Before he knew it, Jisung was getting dragged out of the club by Felix. His small hand wrapped around his wrist, pulling him up the stairs out of the darkness of the underground club.

The first thing Jisung saw was brightness, pure brightness everywhere. Why was it so bright? He squinted as he looked at his friends, who were also squinting as their eyes adjusted to the sun.

“Why are we leaving? I wanted to keep on dancing.” Jisung whined, he couldn’t help it. He was having so much fun inside for once, and not just stuck inside his apartment waiting for sleep to find him.

“Jisung, it’s 6 am.” Felix stated, showing him the time on the lock screen of his phone, confirming that it was indeed 6:02 am. Jisung glanced at the phone which showed a picture of Felix with his arm wrapped around the waist of a girl, the both of them smiling as they looked into the camera.

“How are we getting home?” Jisung asked, ignoring the way his stomach clenched. Must be the alcohol.

“We’re getting the subway.” Felix answered, putting his phone back into his front pocket.

“The subway?” Jisung’s voice raised in pitch, after finding out the time it was like all of the tiredness hit him at once and he felt close to sleeping on the first surface he could find. “Doesn’t that take longer?” He tried to reason, he looked at Hyunjin and Minho hoping they would also find the idea ridiculous and be okay with sharing a taxi. 

Unfortunately for Jisung, both of them shrugged. “It’s cheaper.”

Jisung was now outnumbered having to suffer and wait an extra 40 minutes until he was back in his bed. 

As the four of them made their way to the subway station, Jisung stopped in his tracks realising that they were three people short. “Wait!” The three men around him stopped also, looking at Jisung in question. “Where’s Chan? And Jeongin and Seungmin? Did we lose them?”

Minho snorted, “He went home with that girl he was with an hour ago. You’re clearly observant when you dance.”

“Yeah, and then shortly after that Seungmin ran off to the bathroom cause he overestimated how much soju he could stomach. So Jeongin offered to get them a taxi so he could make sure he could get back okay and decided to just go with him cause Seungmin was looking a little pale and no one has the money to pay a taxi driver if Seungmin decided to spray the backseats with vomit.” Hyunjin filled him in.

Jisung grimaced but hummed in understanding, he himself had a few incidents during his exchange that he wasn’t particularly proud of and forced to stay at the back of his memory.

The subway was pretty much empty, considering the train was going out of Itaewon to the direction of their campus. Jisung found himself sat next to Hyunjin and Felix. The former grabbed his AirPods out of his pocket and put them in his ears and closed his eyes. Leaving Jisung with Felix to talk to. However, the rocking of the subway made Jisung unintentionally close his eyes, sleep overtaking him before he knew it.

“-sung. Jisung. This is our stop.” Jisung’s eyes fluttered open to Felix’s deep voice and a gentle tapping on his thigh. His vision cleared and he noticed that the seats opposite him were tilted. His eyebrows furrowed in confusion, but then the realisation hit him like ice-cold water; he fell asleep on Felix’s shoulder. 

Jisung sat upright just as the train stopped at their station. “Sorry for falling asleep on you.” He wiped at his mouth as he’s known for drooling in his sleep. He prayed that he didn’t drool on Felix’s shoulder, that would have been on the list of the top ten most embarrassing things to ever happen to him. 

“No worries, you look cute when you sleep, your cheeks puff out like this.” Felix then puffs his cheeks out as much as he could, copying how Jisung looks like when he sleeps. “But let’s go, you look like you’re about to pass out.” That was true Jisung did feel close to falling back to sleep if he didn’t get home soon. However, his apartment was at least twenty minutes away by walking, whereas the dorms were only five minutes away.

“Do you wanna stay over at my dorm?” Felix suggested.

Jisung’s eyes widened at the idea. “I mean sure, but won’t you get in trouble for inviting someone who doesn’t live in the dorm?”

“Possibly.” Felix shrugged, like the idea of being kicked out of the dorms didn’t bother him. “But they hardly ever check the CCTV. Plus I don’t think they want to bother me again after what happened last time.”

“What happened last time?” They stood at the traffic lights, after saying their goodbyes to Minho and Hyunjin at the subway station exit as the two lived in the opposite direction to where Jisung and Felix were going.

“The dormitory office tried to kick me out of the dorm thinking I was sneaking in. You know how I live in the international dorm? So no Korean students are allowed to live there.” Jisung nodded. “You should have seen their faces when I told them that I was an international student, had to show them my Australian passport and everything.” Felix laughed as he scanned his student card to the dorm building. He opened the door to let Jisung through first, bowing dramatically, “After you.”

“Do you think Chan is in the dorm or not?” Jisung asked timidly, waiting for Felix to press the button to his floor, since he had no idea what floor the Australian lived on.

“Nah, knowing Chris, he found out the girl he was with lived closer so they went to wherever she is.” Felix pressed the button for the fifth floor, and leaned back against the mirror closing his eyes.

It must’ve been nearing 7 am by now and Jisung was surprised that he had managed to stay awake this late without the help of at least one iced americano.

The elevator dinged once it had reached the fifth floor, Felix walked out first followed by Jisung. They both stopped in front of room 506, Jisung’s eyes avoided the CCTV anxiously as Felix put in his passcode and let them both inside. “Welcome to mi casa. Ignore the mess, it’s all Chris I promise.”

The mess, as described by Felix, was two small bags of beer cans and four dishes left unwashed in the sink. Curious of how the dorm rooms looked, Jisung observed the two bedrooms and shared kitchen and bathroom, it looked well lived in by two men based on the dust bunnies collecting in the corner of the room and underwear on the floor.

“Chris keeps his door locked - he’s not here, by the way, his shoes aren’t by the door, so we’re gonna have to share the bed.” Jisung looked at him while he talked and Felix must have interpreted that differently as he began to stutter. “Un-unless you aren’t okay with that, then I can sleep on the floor.”

Jisung gulped, his throat dry from the lack of water he’s had the entire night. “No, it’s fine. Honestly, I’m so tired right now I could happily sleep on the floor.”

“Absolutely not, you’re my guest so if you sleep on the floor then I’ll sleep on the floor too.” Felix huffed, going over to his wardrobe, rummaging through his clothes before he found some that were deemed clean enough and threw them to Jisung. “Put these on, I’m gonna brush my teeth.”

He eyed the hoodie and sweatpants in his hands before quickly putting them on, they fitted him perfectly, which was a relief because Jisung didn’t want to think about how uncomfortable he felt in the clothes whilst trying to sleep. It was a good thing that he and Felix were of a similar height because he absolutely hated it when he accidentally bought pants too short that they exposed his ankles to the cold air of the ac in the room.

Jisung curled himself into a ball on Felix’s bed, his back touching the wall to leave Felix with enough room on the bed, as well as room between them. Felix came into the room and closed the curtain, shutting out the bright outside world and plunging the room into darkness as he flopped down on the bed, face smothered into the pillow. “ Goodnight, Sung.”

“ Goodnight. ” Jisung whispered, hands clutching the sleeves of Felix’s hoodie. He closed his eyes and waited for sleep to greet him as he listened to the sounds of the ac and Felix’s soft snores.

2 

When Jisung and Felix found out that they were born exactly one day apart, Felix’s face lit up with excitement until he came to the realisation that he was one day younger than Jisung.

“ You guys are like twins .” Chan had said.

“I wouldn’t exactly call us twins. ” Felix said in defence. “ More like...soulmates.”

“That’s way too cheesy, Lix. ” Minho laughed.

Jisung sat quietly as the others bickered over the coincidence that the two were mere hours away from being born on the same day. But more because both of their birthdays were coming up in the next week. Felix couldn’t keep quiet about how excited he was to celebrate his birthday in Korea; of course he was sad that it would be the first time he was celebrating without his family in Australia. But he knew he’d have the memories of celebrating his 22nd birthday in Korea. 

While Felix was over excited, Jisung was under excited. Well, not exactly under excited, he had just never made a big deal about his birthday. Well, as a child growing up he loved celebrating his birthday; the cake; the presents; having his family around him. But after his eighteenth birthday the realisation of the adult world dawned on Jisung and since then all his birthday had been the start of him becoming another year older and one year closer to facing adult responsibilities that he didn’t want to think about.

“Sungie, what do you want to do for your birthday?” Felix asked him.

“I don’t know.” Jisung replied honestly. “Probably spend the day in my room and then maybe going out for dinner? ” He phrased it more as a question, still unsure about what he wanted to do, but he knew for sure he didn’t want to make a big deal of the day.

He was met with a chorus of protests, insisting that they definitely were not going to let that be the case.

Felix smacked his hand down onto the table of the restaurant they were at, a stern look on his face. “ Absolutely not. I’m not letting my buddy slash newfound soulmate spend his birthday doing something boring like just going for dinner. We’re having a party to celebrate.”

“Exactly. ” Chan agreed, nodding firmly. “ Your birthday is the only day of the year that you can be so drunk that you don’t remember the mistakes you made the next day when you’re so hungover it feels like your head is gonna fall off your shoulders.”

“That doesn’t sound appealing at all. ” Jisung scrunched his nose up at Chan’s horrible description.

Sensing that Jisung didn’t have the same celebratory birthday traditions as Chan, Felix thought of an alternative.

“How about on Jisung’s birthday we have a get-together, something lowkey, like; just a few drinks, and on my birthday we can get absolutely fucked? Best of both worlds, I say. ” He suggested. While he took a sip of water Felix made eye contact with Jisung from across the table and sent him a subtle wink.

Flustered, Jisung tore his eyes away from Felix and down to the chopsticks that were placed in front of him. What Felix had suggested was so thoughtful to Jisung that he had to bite the inside of his cheek to stop himself from smiling like an idiot, all because of his friend suggesting they compromise to do something Jisung wanted to do.

“ Yeah, that sounds like a good idea Felix. I can invite my friend right? You haven’t met him yet but I’m sure you’ll all get along with him.”

Chan shook his head and pointed his finger at Jisung. “Jisung, bro, it’s your birthday, you can invite anyone you want. Even that Changbin guy who I nearly got into a fight with last week.”

“You fought Changbin?” Jisung raised his eyebrows in shock, surprised that he didn’t hear about this sooner.

“Nearly.” Chan clarified. “The guy basically challenged me to see who could lift the most weights and then called me a weak little bitch. I swear if Minho didn’t hold me back, I would’ve thrown the dumbbell off his head.”

Minho hummed in agreement. “That’s true, I’m a key witness.”

“I’m actually friends with Changbin.” Jisung murmured out, a bit shy and hesitant of everyone’s reactions to knowing that- apart from Jeongin- Changbin is one of Jisung’s closest friends.

“You are?”  

“Um, yeah. We met during first year, I still hadn’t made any friends yet and was sat by myself in one of my classes and Changbin Hyung came and sat next to me and started up this really awkward conversation but I was polite and kept the conversation going. Then after that Hyung kept sitting next to me every class and we somehow became friends.” 

Felix clapped his hands together, putting everyone's attention onto him. “ Cool. Of course you can invite Changbin, Jisung. I’d like to meet one of your friends.”

Chan mumbled something that Jisung couldn’t hear, but he did see Felix turn to him abruptly and punch him on the arm. His face morphing from one of shock to irritation.

“ What did you say Chan?” Seungmin asked, the tone of his voice playful, like he and everyone else knew something Jisung didn’t.

“ I said-”

“-he said that he’s gonna be on his best behaviour on your birthday and not fight with Changbin.” Felix rushed out, sounding slightly panicked.

Chan looked at Felix and rolled his eyes before confirming. “ Yeah, that’s what I said. I’m gonna act like we’re best friends.” He drawled out dryly.

Felix let out a sigh of relief, slumping back into his seat.

At this point Jisung was thoroughly confused by everyone’s behaviour but decided to ignore it, instead focusing on the food cooking on the grill in the middle of the table.

Felix perked up again by the end of the meal, clasping his hands together with excitement. “ I’m so excited for our birthdays, it’s gonna be such a good night.” Seeing the younger’s face light up, Jisung after a long time was looking forward to his birthday. 

-

“ Cheers to Jisung, the birthday boy. May all of your wishes come true.” Felix raised his glass to toast Jisung. As he promised, the evening so far was kept casual, the people consisted of Jisung and Felix, their new little friendship group of Chan, Minho and Hyunjin, as well as Jisungs friends: Changbin, Seungmin and Jeongin. 

They’d met and treated Jisung to Korean BBQ, fortunately for them a restaurant that served unlimited food as eight grown men could eat so much food that if it weren’t unlimited food available the total check would come to much higher than they would’ve liked.

After tapping out once twelve plates of meat were consumed, Chan said that they still needed a little bit more room in their stomachs for a night of ‘casual’ alcoholic drinks. Which they all unanimously agreed to. They found themselves at a bar nearby that seemed cozy enough to be the perfect place to end their evening. 

However as the evening went on, beer bottles became scattered all across the table, with each round they would cheer a toast to Jisung, which he found much too excessive, especially after the third time they cheered his name. 

The eight men would clink their beer bottles together. “ To Jisung.” They cheered. 

“ Let’s hope he gets laid too .” Chan wriggled his eyebrows suggestively, earning a groan from Felix. 

“ Knock it off, Chris. ” Felix rolled his eyes at his friend and shoved his shoulder with his hand. 

“ What ?” Chan asked in defence. “ It’s a valid thing to wish upon my friend, plus there’s plenty of girls here that are worthy enough for a night of passion with our Jisungie.” He reaches over Felix to pinch Jisungs cheek, squeezing with a bit too much strength. 

Jisung winced from the slight pain in his cheek, he was too polite to ask Chan to let go. So he smiled through it until Chan let go and went back to his bottle of beer and conversation with the rest of the group.

Sensing Jisungs uneasiness, Felix punched Chan in his side. “ Do you literally think before you speak? Shut the fuck up.”

“ What?” Chan questioned, oblivious to his own idiocracy. He held his hands out in confusion, not seeing anything wrong in the way his words made Jisung slightly uncomfortable.

“ You’re an idiot, that’s what.” Felix turned to his right to face Jisung. “Sorry about him, are you okay?” He reached up to trace his thumb over what Jisung assumed to be the red mark on his cheek. 

“Ye-yeah.” Jisung cleared his throat, he was thankful that Felix noticed the small things that the others didn’t notice. He liked that Felix was so observant with all of his friends.

“ Sungie, we should play a game of darts. Loser has to pay for the next round.” Changbin voiced from across the table.

Seungmin smirked from beside him. “ That’s nice of you to offer to buy us the next round, Changbin.”

“Hey!”

Jisung was glad that Changbin was getting along with his new friends. As soon as they had all arrived at the restaurant, Changbin, with his infectious personality won over everyone almost immediately. Seungmin in particular had taken quite the liking to Changbin, over the course of the night he found himself repeatedly teasing the older. But Changbin seemed to just take it with a shy smile and a large gulp of beer before he retorted back.

“ Why don’t you guys go play, I’ll stay here and keep an eye on the drinks and watch you.” Jisung offered.

Everyone got up to either play or have a closer view of the game while Jisung stayed behind where he could still see what was going on from a farther distance. Well, everyone apart from one person.

“ Why are you still here?” Jisung asked Felix.

He took a drink from his beer and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “I wasn’t gonna leave you to sit by yourself, was I? Plus, I think I’d have a better view from where I’m sitting here.”

Jisung frowned, he looked from Felix to where the game of darts was going on behind him. “But I’m in your way.”

“No, you’re good.”

-

Turned out it wasn’t a good idea to have Changbin play against people who were just as competitive as he was. It was the unanimous shouting and the almost accidental breaking of a glass bottle that got them yelled at by the older woman who ran the bar and cut their game short by two rounds.

“ I was so gonna win if Hyunjin wasn’t such a klutz and decided to knock his beer over.” Changbin grumbled, as he got back into his seat, he pouted with his arms crossed over his chest as he had his strop.

Hyunjin rolled his eyes at Changbin’s childlike behaviour. “ I wouldn’t have spilt my beer if Jeongin didn’t throw his arms about with a dart in his hand, then I wouldn’t have needed to duck to get out of his way.” 

“ Hey!” Jeongin protested. “ If Minho didn’t-”

“Everyone shut up we have less than one minute till it’s Lix’s birthday. Where’s the fucking cake?” Chan was looking around, as if expecting someone to come out holding a birthday cake.

“ Um, Chan, we didn’t get Felix a cake. We said we were gonna use the money we would’ve used for a cake to spend on more soju.” Jisung informed him. When they were organising the two birthdays, Jisung and Felix mentioned that they didn’t want a cake if they were going to a all you can eat Korean barbeque in the evening. This then led to a self proclaimed genius idea from Minho that they can use the money to buy even more beer and soju than intended.

Chan sighed in disappointment. “ I was looking forward to cake, beer makes me hungry.” He took out his phone and looked at the screen, eyes widening when he realised the time. “ We have less than a minute, everyone get here quick.” 

All eight of them were either sat or stood around the table as the seconds ticked down until it was Felix’s birthday. Jisung was glad that his birthday was ending, even though this birthday was a lot more enjoyable than his previous birthdays.

“3, 2, 1 .” 

On zero all of them yelled and cheered. 

“ Happy birthday my little Yongbokie.” Chan grabbed Felix with an arm around the younger’s neck, and pulled him towards his chest to place a loud and dramatic smooch to the top of the birthday boy's head. 

Jisung breathed a sigh of relief that all the attention was now off him, and he could now celebrate Felix’s birthday without the day being all about him. He made eye contact with Felix and made his way over to his backpack, pulling out the present he had gotten Felix.

“ Happy birthday, Felix .” Jisung smiled at him, handing over the pen that was decorated with the Australian flag. Felix’s eyes widened at the object, taking it from Jisung’s open hands. He didn’t say anything as he twirled the pen in his fingers.

“ It’s okay if you don’t like it. ” Jisung interpreted the Australian’s silence as disliking the present. “It’s just, I know how people can get homesick when they’re on exchange so I went to three different stores to try and find something with the Australian flag on it and that shitty pen was the only thing I could find. So maybe if whenever you miss home you can look at the pen. I don’t know, it’s stupid-”

“ No, it’s not stupid. I love it. Thank you, Jisungie. I still can’t believe how lucky I was to be placed with the best buddy in the exchange programme.” Jisung let out a soft ‘oof’ as Felix pulled him into a hug, squeezing him tightly. “You’re amazing, Jisung. Thank you.” He whispered into his ear, and Jisung furrowed his eyebrows because all he did was buy Felix a pen.

“I can’t wait until tonight, we’re gonna get so drunk that I’ll completely forget the English language and Chris will try to have a conversation in the bare minimum Korean he knows.” Minho laughed. 

“ Hey! Shut the fuck up, I’m learning. Hello, my name is Chris. I am from Australia.” Chan said proudly in Korean, puffing his chest out in pride from the basic Korean he had learned so far.

“Wow, you’re basically fluent. ” Felix mocked his friend with a snort.

The group stayed at the bar for an extra hour, ordering one more round of drinks and deciding to call it a night once Jeongin yawned for the fifth time. “ I have a early morning class today.” He whined, words slightly slurred due to another yawn escaping.

“ Remember guys, seven pm tonight for dinner then we’re gonna get fucked~” Chan yelled a bit louder than necessary since they were now outside the bar, and the people walking past them had started to stare.

They all dispersed, going their separate ways home. Minho and Hyunjin went one way to their shared apartment. The others made their way in the opposite direction towards campus. “ Lix, you coming?” Seungmin asked, noticing that the birthday boy wasn’t following them on their way home.

“I’m gonna walk Jisung back to his place first and then I’ll walk back to the dorm. Don’t wait up for me.”

“ You are? ” Jisung questioned from behind him. 

Felix turned around, “If that’s okay with you.”

“ Yeah, sure.” Jisung shrugged, he wasn’t against the company on his walk home; plus it was Felix’s decision to stay out later in order to walk Jisung back. Felix is a selfless friend, Jisung thought.

The two of them bid goodbye to their friends and walked in the direction of Jisung’s apartment. Jisung enjoyed the comforting silence between him and Felix as they walked through the back streets of Seoul, the only sounds came from other students leaving the restaurants they passed and the occasional motorbike.

Crossing the main road at the traffic lights, Felix perked up at what he saw across the street.

“Jisung, look!” Felix tapped him on his arm with the back of his hand and pointed to where an e-scooter was parked under the trees across the road. “Do you wanna go on it?” Jisung’s eyes widened as he looked at Felix, who was looking back at him with an eyebrow raised in question.

“Bu-but...you can’t drink and e-scooter.” Jisung tried his best to come up with an excuse as to why they couldn’t ride the scooter at 1:30 am, and the best Jisung could come up with on the spot was that they had both been drinking and were more likely to get into an accident.

“Oh come on, Jisung. I’m hardly stumbling on the street, plus my last drink was hours ago. You know I wouldn’t do anything that would put you in danger.” Felix’s voice almost scared Jisung with how serious it turned.

“I know you wouldn’t do anything dangerous. I’m just-” Jisung coughed into the sleeve of his jacket. “-scared.”

The traffic light turned red and allowed Jisung and Felix to cross the road. 

“I promise you there’s nothing to be scared about; I can drive and you can hold onto me, and I’ll drive so impossibly slow that it’ll be faster to walk.” Felix proposed.

“If that's the case then I might as well walk than get on that death machine.”

“Death machine?” Felix gaped at Jisung. As they reached the green scooter, Felix took his phone out of his pocket and opened up an app. “Don’t be dramatic, Sung. I have the app already since I’ve used these e-scooters plenty of times with Chris. Plus it’ll take ten minutes to your place and it’ll be quicker for me to ride back to campus.” The birthday boy pouted at Jisung with puppy dog eyes. 

Jisung forced himself to look away from Felix’s pouting face, he just knew that Felix uses this face to get whatever he wanted and it wasn’t going to work on Jisung. Nope. Absolutely not.

“Sungie~ Please~It’s my birthday.” 

Don’t look at him, Jisung.

Too late, Jisung made eye contact with the younger, and couldn’t tear his eyes away from Felix’s wide doe eyes. 

You can do it Jisung, Felix has no power over you, just say no.

As if it was even possible, Felix’s eyes widened even more, and jutted his lip out even further.

“ For fucks sake. Okay. I’ll go on the fucking scooter.”

“ Woooooo! You won’t regret this Sung. I promise, this is gonna be so much fun.” Felix put his information into the app and turned the e-scooter on. He stepped up onto the e-scooter and looked back at Jisung waiting for him to join him. “C’mon, Sung, it’s getting late.”

“I’m so going to regret this.” Jisung muttered under his breath as he joined Felix on the scooter and placed his hands on the other’s waist hesitantly. 

“You’re gonna have to hold onto me tighter than that otherwise you’re gonna fall off.” Felix pointed out.

“What?” Jisung exclaimed, wrapping his arms tightly around Felix’s midriff, pulling the younger towards him so Felix’s back was flat against his chest. 

Felix laughed in response, a light and hearty laugh that Jisung could feel on his chest from the close proximity of the pair. “You ready?”

“No, but we might as well go, cause if we are gonna get into an accident it might as well happen now instead of later.”

“That's the spirit.” Felix cheered, turning the e-scooter on and driving along the sidewalk.

Jisung squeezed his eyes tightly shut as soon as they started moving, he could feel the winding whipping past them, blowing his hair back off his face. Despite how much Jisung could imagine how beautiful the streets looked, he refused to open his eyes, content with tucking his face into Felix’s back. He could only see darkness and the occasional flash of light from the street lamps above them.

“Jisung, open your eyes.”

“My eyes are open.”

“Liar! I know your eyes are closed because you would’ve complained earlier about us being on the road.”

Jisung’s eyes shot open and true to Felix’s word, they were currently driving on the road. Due to it being the middle of the night there were no other cars on the road with them. “Oh my god.” 

Jisung was amazed by all of the lights from the signs that shined around them, all blurring into one mass colour as they drove past. He found it odd to be on the streets where the only main sound was the whirring of the scooter. Felix tilted his body slightly to the left as they turned round a corner, Jisung who still had his arms wrapped around his waist, Jisung followed Felix’s actions. 

“Are you having fun?” Felix called over his shoulder as they stopped at a red light.

“Yeah, I am.” Jisung answered honestly, here he was ten minutes ago adamant that he wasn’t going to get on the e-scooter, and now he was enjoying himself and possibly thinking about doing it again.

They drove for another five minutes until Jisung recognised the streets near his apartment. Felix stopped the e-scooter outside the entrance of Jisung’s apartment complex. Jisung stepped down slowly, his legs a little shaky from all the adrenaline he had got himself worked up for.

“You good?” Felix held his hand out in case Jisung needed something to hold onto to support himself.

“I’m still a bit overwhelmed that I actually just did that.”

“I’m sorry I forced you to do that, we don’t have to do anything like that again. The last thing I want is for you to be out of your comfort zone.” 

Jisung shook his head, “No, it’s okay, surprisingly I had a lot of fun. Maybe we could do it again sometime.”

“Again?” 

“Again.” Jisung confirmed, he turned to make his way into his apartment building. “Happy birthday, Felix. Goodnight.” He called over his shoulder and walked into his building, missing the smile on Felix’s face as he watched him walk inside.

3

Jisung finished typing the end of his sentence feviously. Pressing the key to the full stop he let out a loud sigh as he leaned back in his chair. Midterms were just around the corner and Jisung had been spending way too much time in the cafe just outside of campus. Some days he would stay in the cafe until closing; which, for Jisung’s favourite cafe, was midnight.

He’d received a text from Felix earlier in the day asking if they could meet up that day since they hadn’t seen each other all week. Admittedly, that was Jisung’s fault for bailing on Felix whenever the Australian asked him to hang out. However, today Jisung suggested that Felix come meet him at the cafe, to which Felix happily agreed.

The lack of words on Jisung’s laptop screen mocked him as he took a sip of his iced americano. Jisung was lucky enough to manage to grab a table next to the window so it was easy enough to spot Felix when he would arrive at five pm. As he looked at his watch, Jisung saw that Felix would be arriving any minute now. 

Deciding on going back to his essay, Jisung typed more words of utter bullshit until Felix arrived. As he was in the middle of writing a quote he felt the presence of a figure at the table. “Hey, Sung. Sorry, I’m late.” 

Jisung looked up startled to see Felix holding onto the back of the chair opposite him, his breath slightly laboured, as if he was in a rush to get here. He looked at his phone and saw that it was fifteen minutes after five, understanding why Felix was apologising for being late. 

“It’s fine, I think I zoned out while writing my essay that I didn’t even notice that you didn’t arrive on time.” Jisung assured him.

“Okay, good, I’m gonna quickly get myself a drink and then we can discuss how much midterms suck ass.” Felix pointed to the counter behind him, he waited for Jisung’s nod of confirmation before walking to get his order.

Jisung sighed once again, in hindsight he was glad that Felix arrived when he did, so that Jisung finally had the excuse to close his laptop and take a break from the dreaded essay that is the cause of his fucked up sleep schedule. 

Felix came back holding a tray of two hot drinks and a slice of cheesecake. He placed the tray down on their table and put one of the steaming mugs down in front of Jisung, before he put the slice of cheesecake down next to it.

“I didn’t order a drink, or a slice of cheesecake.” Jisung was confused as to why Felix ordered these for him.

“I saw how stressed you looked when I walked in so it looked like you needed it.” Felix said simply. “It’s hot chocolate, your favourite.”

“Thank you.” Jisung said gratefully, immediately grabbing one of the forks and digging into the cheesecake. The taste made Jisung want to melt on the spot, it was just an average tasting slice of cheesecake but Jisung felt under so much pressure that the food tasted like sweet relief from all of his worries.

Felix sat down in the chair opposite Jisung and wrapped his hands around his mug of coffee. He watched as Jisung quite forcefully stabbed his fork into the cheesecake and put it into his mouth. “Is the cheesecake good?” Felix asked with a smirk.

Jisung hummed around the fork in his mouth, he then put a bit on the fork and held it out to Felix. “Try it.” He offered.

Felix eyed the cheesecake on the fork then flitted his eyes up to meet Jisung’s waiting gaze, only to quickly look back to the cheesecake again. Jisung raised an eyebrow in question, silently asking Felix what was taking him so long, plus his arm was starting to hurt from holding it outwards over the table.

“Are you sure?” 

Jisung rolled his eyes, “Yes, I’m literally offering it to you.”

“I mean I did buy the cheesecake for you-”

Felix didn’t get to finish his sentence because Jisung saw his opportunity to shove the fork into the younger’s mouth, careful not to stab him. Jisung grinned triumphantly as Felix was finally silenced and ate the piece of cheesecake offered to him.

“It’s good, right?”

Felix nodded, he licked his lips once he finished, “Yeah, it’s good cheesecake,” Then he wiped at the corner of his mouth subconsciously since there was no evidence of cheesecake around his mouth. “I’m glad I bought it for you, you deserve to be treated every once in a while.”

“Well as long as I get cheesecake, you can treat me as much as you want.” He said through a mouthful of cheesecake.

“It’s a good thing that you’re worth me spending all my student finance on.” Felix’s smile grew bigger, he leaned back in his seat as he observed Jisung. His stare made Jisung look down at his hot chocolate, suddenly the swirling foam on the top of the hot liquid was more intriguing than the sparkles of Felix’s eyes as they glanced at every inch of Jisung.

Jisung flitted his eyes up occasionally to see if Felix was still looking at him -he was- and every time they made eye contact Jisung would panic and quickly put his head back down. Once again finding his drink more interesting. But on what felt like to Jisung the fifth time of making eye contact, Jisung couldn’t force himself to look away from Felix. Despite knowing each other for two months now, Jisung realised that Felix had somehow wormed his way into Jisung’s life and could easily read him as if they’d been friends for years.

Their moment -if you can even call it a moment- is interrupted by Jisung’s phone buzzing, indicating a notification. Jisung picked up his phone and groaned seeing the message.

Minjae from class: Jisung?? We need your part for the project, we’re already two days behind because of you, hurry up and send it to me.

“ Fuck off. ” Jisung muttered under his breath. However, it was loud enough for Felix to hear. The blond’s radiant smile drops, concern now etching his face.

“Hey, Sung. Is everything okay?” Felix placed his elbows onto the table leaning closer to Jisung. “You never swear in English unless you’re upset or if I get my own way. Who made my Sungie upset? Who do I need to beat up?”

The attempt to look intimidating on Felix’s face with the combination of the seriousness of his words made Jisung giggle. Little releases of laughter that increased in volume as Felix’s attempt of looking big and bad failed miserably. “It’s no one. Just someone from my group project nagging at me to hand in my part of the project. Even though I was given the biggest part and we for some reason decided last minute to change the entire topic so now I have to start from scratch. And that's all on top of all the rest of my essays and revising I have to do.” He didn’t mean to rant at Felix, he just felt all of his frustrations from the past couple of weeks that he’s kept bottled in exploding all at once. 

He tightened his hold on his cup of hot chocolate, wincing at the heat that transferred onto the palms of his hands.

Felix noticed Jisung’s distress, reaching across the table to stroke the back of Jisung’s fingers with his fingertips. The touch was so light and delicate that Jisung almost didn’t feel it. He closed his eyes and breathed deeply through his nose, he tried to block out the sounds coming from throughout the coffee shop and tried to focus on Felix’s touch, and the way he gently traced shapes into the back of his hand, and how the hairs on his arms seemed to stand up. 

Small goosebumps then appeared on his arms, Jisung could see them dusting his forearms, but that was due to the ac in the room, right?

“Tell me about something that makes you happy.” Jisung opened his eyes unexpectedly at Felix’s request, it was so out of the blue that Jisung didn’t fully understand what he meant. 

“What?”

“What makes you happy, or just a happy memory. My Mum always makes me think of a happy memory from my childhood or whatever whenever my head is filled with too many thoughts.”

Jisung tapped his fingers against the table as he thought. The first memory to come to mind was the time he went to Han river with his parents when he was a child and got to run around on the grass as he chased away the birds. There was also the memory of when he passed his university entry exams after thinking that he had totally messed up on them.

Many memories were running through his head, but he finally decided on one that brought a smile on his face just thinking about it. “During my second year at university, Changbin, Jeongin and I went to Lotte World. We bought those headbands and took way too long trying to fit the three of us in one of those photobooths. Changbin had spent the entire day avoiding going on the rollercoaster - you know the big one that’s inside and goes through the second floor?” He waited until Felix nodded in acknowledgement until he continued. “Yeah, he kept making excuses; like there was a shorter queue elsewhere or that he needed to pee. I don’t know how Jeongin did it, but he somehow managed to convince Changbin to go on the rollercoaster with us.”

Felix smiled fondly at what Jisung was saying. He took a sip of his drink before saying. “Jeongin probably just gave him his best puppy dog eyes and Changbin couldn’t possibly say no. Trust me I’ve fallen victim to Jeongin’s puppy dog eyes too many times.” 

“Most likely.” Jisung agreed, he took a quick sip of his got chocolate before continuing. “But I remember being sat next to Changbin on the ride and he spent the entire ride screaming. His scream was so high pitched that I spent the entire ride laughing and walked off the ride with tears streaming down my face. I always bring it up to him whenever he’s annoying me and then he shuts up immediately.”

Felix laughed along with Jisung. “How come you’re perfectly fine going on a rollercoaster but you were hesitant to go on a scooter?” He raised an eyebrow in question.

Jisung pointed his index finger at the boy opposite him. “Hey! There’s a difference though. Roller Coasters are predictable, you know that you’re perfectly safe while riding one. Whereas riding on an e-scooter on the streets, anything could go wrong; like getting distracted and losing concentration or another person driving could get distracted.”

Felix hummed in understanding. “That’s very true. I didn’t think of it that way.” He paused for a second, before a smirk rose on his face. Leaning forward across the table he lowered his voice as he spoke, which sent shivers running up Jisung’s spine. “Does that make me special then that you trust me enough when we went on the e-scooter?”

A notification popped up on Felix’s phone, drawing Jisung’s attention off the other and his freckles that were close enough to be seen and almost sparkled from the lights in the cafe hitting off Felix’s face.

He noticed that the Australian must have changed his lockscreen from the previous one of him with a girl, that he first noticed when Felix showed him the time after they went clubbing during the first week of the semester. Jisung remembered how happy Felix looked in the picture, and the weird feeling he felt in his stomach upon looking at the image.

“You changed your lock screen.” The words were out of Jisung’s mouth before he could stop them, he desperately wished he could take them back but he knew it was too late when Felix’s brows furrowed in confusion. “ What?”

“Your lock screen.” Jisung nodded his head in the direction to where Felix’s phone laid on the table. “It’s no longer the picture of you and your girlfriend.”

Felix choked back a laugh, throwing his hand over his mouth to cover the chortle that threatened to escape. “What? What?” 

“I remember back when we went clubbing for the first time, you showed me your phone and I noticed the picture was of you and a pretty girl. You make a cute couple, by the way. But you’ve changed it.” Jisung told him, now looking at the new lockscreen which was a picture of him, Felix and their friends that was taken on the night of Felix’s birthday. The picture was taken in the beginning of the night, all of them dressed up huddled around each other to fit into frame, before all the chaos that followed that night that led onto the early hours of the morning.

Felix picked up his phone and started scrolling. “Wait there.” He told Jisung. He continued scrolling until he stopped and found what he was looking for. “You mean this picture?” The picture was indeed the one that Jisung knew to be Felix’s previous lockscreen. “This picture of me and my sister?”

What? Oh. Oh.

Jisung was pretty sure he felt embarrassment flood his entire body. He wanted to hide under the table or get up and run away. He regretted ever opening his mouth. “ Haha. Well that’s embarrassing.”

“Nah you’re good, don’t fret about it.” Felix reassured him, he had stopped laughing about the situation as he noticed Jisung’s face start to redden. “But I’d just like to clarify that I am very much single.”

If he were taking a drink, Jisung was pretty sure he would’ve spat it out to do a double take. Did Felix really just say that? He could feel the tips of his ears grow warm as he realised that the clarification of Felix being single made his stomach jump. “ Oh, cool. I’m single too.” He stated dumbly, his mind a little fuzzy from all the feelings and thoughts that are suddenly swarming around in his head that he can’t think straight.

Why was it affecting him so much when the younger said he was single. And why did Jisung feel relief when he realised that the girl in the picture wasn’t his girlfriend but his sister. And on top of all of that, why is Jisung still thinking about the way Felix held his hand just before when he was frustrated over his classes and projects.

His inner turmoil gets interrupted by Felix, who lets out a quiet giggle at Jisung’s comment. “I’m glad we clarified that for each other. Wouldn't want to get into any other misunderstandings.”

Jisung ducked his head, once again pretending to find the drink in front of him more interesting than continuing to stare at Felix and make a bigger fool out of himself.

With an empty plate and two empty mugs on the table, Felix offered to get them another set of drinks. Jisung told him that it was only fair that since Felix paid for their first drinks, he should get the next. As he pushed his chair back to get up, Felix did the same, taking a hold of Jisung’s wrist and insisting that he wanted to.

Jisung wanted to put up a fight, he really did, but it turned out that Felix can be very persuasive when he wants to be.

Sitting back down, Felix stood up triumphantly to get more drinks, while Jisung was left alone to question what this new feeling in the pit of his stomach was and when it would go away. 

4

When Jisung was younger he loved to sing. He would take part in school musicals, the kind where he would stand centre stage belting out the songs as his peers stood around him not as enthusiastically singing. He would sing anywhere he could; around the house, in the supermarket following his mother as they did their weekly shopping, even at school, so much so they Jisung’s parents were called into the school because Jisung was singing that much.

However, as Jisung hit his teenage years he slowly stopped singing, it started with him no longer participating in the school musicals and the Christmas performances. Then he would no longer sing around the house, or anywhere outside. It wasn’t as if he fell out of love with singing, no, it just so happened that Jisung naturally stopped singing in front of others. The only times that he would sing was when he was alone in his apartment, usually a dramatic number while he was vacuuming the floor or cleaning the dishes; voice so loud that it would be heard over the radio.

During the multiple times that Jisung would go to a karaoke room with his friends, he would always find some sort of excuse as to why we couldn’t sing. The most popular one was that his throat hurt; adding in an exaggerated cough as he watched the rest of his friends butcher popular songs. But, once that excuse had worn thin, Jisung then came up with any excuse that came to mind at that moment, like; he was too drunk to sing or too bloated, even saying that he read an article on the internet claiming that singing can lead to brain loss, meaning that his rendition of Let it Go had to wait until next time so he could keep his memory for as long as possible. 

That was until Jisung went to a karaoke room with Felix and the rest of their group of friends.

Midterms had come and gone and Jisung spent his time divided between attending classes and going out with his friends. It surprised him just how much Felix had the power to make Jisung come out of his shell and spend time with the others and not just be holed up in his room all day studying. 

When they didn’t hang out in their group of eight, Jisung spent his time alone with Felix; Jisung told himself that he was just being Felix’s tour guide since the Australian was new to Seoul, and not that he enjoyed the youngers company to the point that he excitedly anticipated when their next hangout would be.

Ever since that afternoon in the coffee shop where Jisung felt goosebumps rise upon his skin just from Felix’s touch, he questioned how he viewed his Australian friend. Clearly, Felix had some sort of impact on Jisung, one that he didn’t really want to think about and he definitely wasn’t going to tell Felix about it.

The eight of them went out for their weekly Korean barbeque and drinks. After a few bottles of soju, Jisung was ready to go home until Jeongin suggested that they go to a karaoke for an hour or two. “Guys I don’t wanna go home yet, let's go to a noraebang.” Jeongin didn’t even say it as a question, as if he already knew how everyone would answer.

“ Yes that new OST just came out and I wanna see if they have it yet.” Hyunjin agreed, downing the rest of his beer glass.

“ Yeah, sure. I have nowhere else to be.” Seungmin shrugged.

The rest of them made sounds of agreement around the table, apart from Jisung who stayed silent and thought whether he should call it a night early or join his friends and at least sit in the karaoke room while his friends had fun. From across the table, Jisung could feel Felix’s eyes on him. “ Sung, you wanna go?”  

Felix’s question then made the other six pairs of eyes turn to Jisung, waiting for his answer. Jisung bit his lip as he looked from Felix to his glass of beer that was almost empty then back up at Felix. He heard a small voice in the back of his mind telling him that he should go, that these people are his friends and he enjoys spending time with them. That he knew if he didn’t go he would regret not going and missing out on the potential memories he would make.

“ Yeah, I’d love to go.” Jisung smiled as he made eye contact with Felix across the table. The Australian mirrored his smile, growing wider as Jisung confirmed that he would join.

It was at this moment that Jisung realised that he would do anything to be able to see Felix smile like that again. Fuck the butterflies in his stomach, they were worth it if it was him who Felix was smiling at.

The group quickly made their way to the nearest karaoke room, which was fortunately only two buildings away from the restaurant they ate at. As they walked in Chan insisted that because he was the oldest he should pay for the room and treat them all since no one had seemed to fail any of their midterms. 

No-one stopped him from taking his card out and paying.

Despite paying for the biggest room it was still quite a squeeze for all eight of them to fit. The soft sofas just managed to fit all of them on. Opposite the seats was a large tv that was mounted on the wall where the lyrics of the songs appeared. 

Felix went straight to the tambourines that were laid on the table, he picked them up and automatically started shaking them, the clattering sound bouncing around the compact room. 

Suddenly there were seven voices talking at once as everyone apart from Jisung were making song requests, arguing and making comments about each other's choice of songs.

“ There's no way I’m singing High School Musical .” Minho grumbled, ripping the songbook out of Jeongin’s hands.

“ Hey! Breaking free is a song we all know and I wanna sing Troy’s parts.” Jeongin snatched the book back, flipping through the pages to the English song section.

“ If I can’t sing Ed Sheeran, I’m leaving.” Chan declared from where he was sitting on the couch.

Jisung remained silent from where he was sat, he knew that he didn’t want to sing any songs but he was aware of the time that was currently ticking down until they would be told to leave. “Guys, why don’t we sing a song that everyone wants to sing? We have enough time.” He reasoned, wanting his friends to all enjoy the limited time they had together in the room and wanting everyone to sing at least one song each of their choice.

Soon enough Jisung’s friends chose the first song to sing and the lights in the room darkened and the disco lights turned on as the instrumental of a song that Jisung briefly recognised started playing. It was Minho, Chan and Hyunjin who were standing with microphones in their hands, when the chorus hit their voices seemed to get even louder in the hopes that would give them extra points at the end of the song. Turned out that singing -shouting- your way through a song does not give you extra points as the three of them came out with a scoring of 83 points.

The whole room erupted in shouts of disbelief, Hyunjin stomped his foot dramatically as he pouted at the overly harsh scoring.

“ What fucking bullshit .” Chan cried out, ready to throw his microphone at the tv. “ That was worth at least ninety-five.”

“I’m going to show this shitty machine that they’re full of shit and give a fucking one hundred score.” Minho said with determination as he chose the next song. 

The next hour was spent with each of the boys choosing songs; every time trying to get a perfect score, mainly for boasting points, but also to show the stupid machine it was wrong to ever doubt their amazing singing abilities.

In that time, Jeongin sang a famous trot song that the exchange students amongst the group had never heard of, yet still waved their arms to the beat of the song. The room doubled in volume after Jeongin had successfully managed to score the first one hundred of the night.

Felix and Chan insisted that they needed to sing a song by an Australian, something about Australian pride - Jisung couldn’t remember.

“ Move your body close to mine.” Chan sang along, 

Felix’s singing voice was the complete opposite to his speaking voice; while his speaking voice was deep and intimidating, his singing voice surprised Jisung, it was soft and melodic, and immediately became Jisung’s favourite sound. “ I wanna get close to you.” He looked at Jisung as he sang this, the two of them making eye contact. Neither of them looked away as the song was nearing the end. Jisung could feel his cheeks start to heat, but he told himself that was just due to being in a small stuffy room. 

Jisung sat on his hands as he bit his lip, toeing his left shoe against the heel of his right shoe, he felt a weird sensation in the pit of his stomach, ever since midterms Jisung would have this similar feeling whenever he and Felix made eye contact. It was similar to the feeling when you’re on the beginning of a rollercoaster and your stomach drops as you’re reclined going up the track waiting for the first drop. 

It also didn’t help that Felix started linking their pinky fingers together whenever the pair were walking side by side. At first, Jisung jumped from the contact, startled from the unexpectancy of another hand touching his own, but soon got used to Felix curling his smaller finger around his own. In fact, he got so used to it to the point that he unknowingly initiated the gesture.

His thoughts are interrupted by Chan who yelled in delight when his and Felix’s score came up as a perfect 100. “ Wooo baby, that’s what I’m talking about a perfect score. ”

Felix plopped down next to Jisung, breath panting from the performance he gave, he had a mic in hand and offered it to him. “ Sung it’s your turn, you haven’t sang a single song all night and we only have twenty minutes left in the room. ” He said softly and gestured to the corner of the tv screen where indeed it said that the group had twenty minutes and counting until they would be asked to leave.

Jisung froze, he took a sharp inhale of breath as he suddenly felt seven pairs of eyes on him, waiting for him to answer. “ Oh, no, no. ” He waved his hands out widely side to side, his hands a little numb from sitting on them. “ That’s okay, I’d rather someone else who wants to sing a song that hasn’t come on yet go first .”

“ Come on, Ji. I wanna hear you sing .” Changbin whined, his friend had a pout on his face, an attempt to appear cute and somewhat convincing for Jisung to take the bait and say okay. 

“I-er-I-” Jisung stuttered, his nerves heightened as his eyes darted between the awaiting looks of his friends. Noticing his nerves, Felix’s face softened in understanding, he nudged Jisung’s shoulder with his own. “ You don’t have to if you don’t wanna, Sung. But just know that I’ll be your number one fan. Or we could do a duet, I already know we’d be much better than Jeongin and Minho’s performance .”

“ Hey! ”

“ What does that mean ?”

Felix ignored the protests of Jeongin and Minho, choosing to remain eye contact with Jisung, the glint in his eyes reassuring Jisung that whatever he chose to do it’ll be okay. Alongside the sets of eyes he felt on him, he suddenly felt the same pinky finger loop around his, and it felt cheesy to Jisung but he knew that his worries had melted away.

“ Yeah, okay I’ll sing. ” Jisung said confidently, and he felt it, 

The smile that Felix had on his face was the brightest that Jisung had seen; so wide that it reached his eyes to the point that his nose scrunched up in an adorable way that Jisung’s stomach did a loop de loop on the rollercoaster that was the emotions he felt when he was with Felix.

“ Awesome, what song do you wanna sing?” Hyunjin asked from across the room, his focus was on the tv, as he tapped on the large remote to see what songs were available.

Jisung said the name of the song he wanted to sing; a recent English pop hit that was popular in the West as well as Korea. Hyunjin hummed in acknowledgement and started to type the name, it quickly came up on the screen, showing the name of the artist.

“ Oh, wait. I love this song, good choice Jisung .” Minho commented.

As he stood, Jisung took the microphone off Changbin, he rolled the object between his hands, trying to remember the last time he actually held a microphone. His memory thought of the time that he performed in a winter musical in his last year of middle school. He had a solo song where he stood in the centre of the stage with the rest of his peers standing behind him as back up. Now that he thought about it, Jisung kind of missed the feeling of nerves that built up inside him when he was backstage, waiting to go on stage. 

But now, Jisung wasn’t on centre stage in front of the families of his classmates, he was in front of his friends. People he was comfortable with, which for Jisung, took a lot for him to be his true self around others. He took a deep breath as the familiar tune of the song started to play, he closed his eyes as he sang the first notes. It felt natural for him as he belted out the long notes and keeping up with the fast paced rap.

As the song reached its more upbeat chorus, Jisung opened his eyes and kept them looking at the tv screen and not as his friends who were dancing along behind him.

He found it quite funny how he hadn’t sung in years, losing his love of singing, yet all it took was one song in a karaoke room with three foreigners and four of his classmates for Jisung to find the enjoyment of singing again. 

Turning around, Jisung made eye contact with Felix, the blond wasn’t dancing like everyone else. Instead, he stood staring at Jisung with an indescribable expression on his face. 

When the song reached it’s dance break, Jisung danced along without worrying that he’d look odd or if anyone else in the room would judge him. He laughed with delight as he brought out his most silliest dance moves and made his friends giggle with him.

He noticed Felix still stood in the same spot, except now a fond smile had overtaken his face. Jisung held a microphone out to him that was placed on the table unused. Felix took it without hesitation and joined Jisung in singing. 

The two of them jumped to the beat while almost yelling the lyrics. The song finished after what was three and a half minutes of beautiful singing and a small rave with tambourines. Jisung almost felt drunk from the way his ears were ringing and feeling light headed from all of the vigorous movements his body made while dancing.

“You’re a good singer.” Felix told Jisung as they were on their way home. They all tried to stay in the karaoke room for as long as possible, but eventually, their time ran out. Leaving all eight boys to sigh and put the microphones back as they stepped out of the dark room with ringing ears.

“I’m not that good.” Jisung’s ears burned at the compliment, not used to getting praised for something like his singing in so long, especially from someone like Felix.

“I think you know how good you are, but I appreciate your modesty.”

Jisung kicked a pebble with the toe of his shoe and watched as it bounced across the gravel. He fought the urge to look back at the Australian, knowing that he would lose his composure if he were to do so. “What about you? You’re really good at singing. Is there anything that you can’t do?”

Chan, who was walking past them with Jeongin and Changbin, must’ve heard their conversation because he looked over his shoulder. “ He can’t admit to the person when he has a crush, ain’t that right Felix.”

“Shut the fuck up, Chris.” Felix almost growled at his friend.

“ You’ll thank me one day.” Chan sing-songed with a smirk on his face. Which quickly fell once he saw the deadly look in Felix’s eyes aimed at him. “ Well would you look at that, Minho is calling for me.” He ran off towards the younger, despite Minho being in a conversation with Seungmin and Hyunjin and hadn’t once said Chan’s name.

“I’ll kill him one day.” Felix muttered under his breath. But Jisung didn’t hear him, too focused on Chan’s words. Felix having a crush. The rest of their walk home Jisung thought about who Felix had a crush on. Was it Yeji? The pretty blond girl who was friends with Hyunjin. There was also Chenle, the Chinese exchange student who was here for his second semester and shared a few classes with Felix.

Or Jisung was -as usual- overthinking things and Chan could have simply been talking about the past and Felix didn’t even have a crush.

But what if he did?

Jisung wanted to slap himself for thinking like that, but the little voice of ‘what if’ was yelling in the back of his mind. It was totally fine if Felix had a crush and it wasn’t him, Jisung was perfectly content with having to deal with knowing that this new found crush liked someone else.

Jisung didn’t care.

Nope, not at all.

…

Okay, maybe he did.

5

Jisung shivered as the cold December air rushed past him. His winter coat could only give him so much warmth. He put his gloves back on as he walked up the stairs of the subway exit, then realised that even gloves couldn’t mask the numbness of his fingers and put his hands back into his pockets and grasped onto the handwarmers that he kept in there. 

Earlier in the morning, he received a text from Felix asking if he’d like to accompany him to Namsan Tower, because, despite being in Seoul for the past four months, he had yet to visit the popular tourist attraction.

“I still can’t believe you haven’t been to Namsan tower, what have you been doing the entire time you’ve been here?” Jisung asked in disbelief.

“Spending time with you.” Felix replied, a sly smirk gracing his face. 

Jisung turned his head away from his crush to hide the smile that threatened to show. What Felix said was true, over the course of the semester the two of them had spent a considerable time together. They spent time together in their group. But they also found themselves together without the company of the others. To the point that Felix knew the layout of Jisung’s apartment like the back of his hand, and Jisung knew all about Felix’s life back in Australia.

It had been a while since Jisung had accepted that the feelings he had for his friend were romantic. But of course he didn’t tell Felix that. Instead, Jisung just carried on as normal, except now he blushed a lot more and his heart fluttered at almost anything Felix did. 

“Sadly, that’s true. So sad.” Jisung spoke with sarcasm. “But seriously if I had known you hadn’t been, I would’ve taken you sooner.”

“Hey, I just assumed that you’d been a million times and didn’t want to go another time.” Felix said defensively.

“Yeah, I’ve been there too many times to count.” Jisung pointed out. “But that doesn’t mean that I wouldn’t want to go one more time if it were with you.”

There were two options on how to get up Namsan Mountain to the plaza where the tower was situated, a short journey on a cable car or walking. Jisung had always previously taken the cable car but once he saw the queue that said it would be an hour waiting, they simultaneously agreed it would be quicker to walk up.

However, it turned out that Jisung was not as fit as he last remembered. After twenty minutes of climbing up the steps that lead to the tower, he noticed his breath start to labour. It didn’t help that Felix seemed to have no issue and would continue to talk to Jisung with normal breaths. Causing Jisung to attempt to reply to him without it sounding like he was two breaths away from an asthma attack. 

They stopped occasionally at the checkpoints to catch their breaths - well Jisung caught his breath. Felix wanted to stop and see Seoul from a taller height, so that he could see the mountains in the distance, and the tall buildings and every other thing that could be seen from a distance.

“Sung this is so beautiful. Do you think we can see campus from here?” Felix asked him with excitement.

“Ye-yeah, maybe.” Jisung panted out from where he was keeled over with his hands on his knees. 

Felix, on the other hand, stood at the ledge, his hands grasping onto the wooden beam. “Jisung, come here you need to see this.”

Jisung managed to get his breath back before joining Felix at the ledge. The younger had his phone out, taking a panoramic photo of the skyline. Once he made sure he was satisfied with the finished result, he did the same thing except with a video. 

Just as he got his breathing back to normal, Felix suggested that they continue climbing the steps until they reached the top to where the tower was situated. Felix’s eager steps carried his legs a little bit faster than Jisung’s, leaving him trailing behind slightly, he could feel his calves start to ache and cursed himself as he knew he would wake up the next day with his body physically aching. 

Felix noticed that Jisung was no longer by his side. He stopped in the middle of the step, moving to the side to let a young couple go past him. The two of them made eye contact and Felix’s must’ve seen the pain in Jisung’s eyes because he showed a look of sympathy and held his hand out towards him.

All of the blood rushing to his head must have made all of Jisung’s brain cells take a moment of absence because when he walked past Felix and his still awaiting hand, Jisung stupidly held his own hand out and connected the two in an unenthusiastic high five. 

Felix paused for a second before bursting out into laughter. His laughter got louder as he took in Jisung’s confused face, drawing in the attention of other locals curious to see as to what the commotion was about. “I had my hand out for you to hold so you don’t get left behind, not for a high five.”

The wind whistled in Jisung’s ears as he felt embarrassment run through his entire body. He crossed his arms over his chest, tapping his foot against the wooden step. “I knew that.” He muttered partially under his breath, not wanting to let his embarrassment continue on for any longer, Jisung didn’t think twice before grabbing Felix’s hand and leading him up the steps, not looking back to see the Australian’s reaction.

They made it to the top without Jisung’s hand becoming clammy, or maybe it did but Felix was too polite to mention it. Unsurprisingly, there were only a few people in the area, with it being the beginning of Winter, Jisung and Felix were two of the people stupid enough to be there on such a cold day. 

“Where should we go first?” Jisung asked.

“I was thinking maybe having a look at the locks over there, and then going to the gift shop.” Felix was talking about the multiple fences that were decorated with thousands of ‘love’ locks, left by locals and tourists alike, who bought a lock from the gift shop and wrote a message on the rubber lock before leaving it locked onto a fence, keeping the key as a symbol of their love.

“Of course, lead the way.”

Felix was in awe by the vast amount of locks. “I knew that this place was famous for the locks but I didn’t know that there were this many.” He ran his fingers along the locks, occasionally stopping to read one. “Have you ever bought a lock?”

Jisung shook his head. “No, I haven’t. Everytime I came with someone else we never bothered with buying one.”

“Well that just won’t do.” Felix tutted, dragging Jisung in the direction of the gift shop. “That means that we have to buy one.”

The gift shop had an array of locks up for sale. Jisung gave Felix the honour of choosing which lock to buy, as it was obvious that the younger was more excited about putting one on the fence.

“Okay, so I’m thinking between the standard red heart or the purple padlock.” Felix held up the two locks with his head tilted in thought. “Which one should we get?”

“I-”

“I think we should get the heart. It’s bigger anyways, that means we’ll have more room to write on it.” He nodded to himself, satisfied with the lock and made his way to pay for the item.

Jisung hurried his steps to catch up to the eager boy. Felix fumbled with his phone as he tried to get his card out of his phone case, while he struggled, Jisung easily took his own card from his phone case, and placed it onto the machine to pay.

“Hey!” Felix protested as he put his phone away in defeat. “I was gonna pay for that.”

“Too slow.” Jisung teased, sticking his tongue out childishly. “It’s fine, I wanted to pay for it anyway. My treat.”

Felix huffed. “Okay, but I’m paying for the next thing.”

They said thank you to the cashier and went over to the area that is designated to writing messages on the locks. 

“How do you wanna do this?”

Jisung shrugged. “We write on one side each. You can go first.”

“Sure.” The younger leaned over the table to grab a black marker and took the cap off. “No looking, it’s a surprise.” He shooed Jisung away, noticing him peering over his shoulder.

He wrote his message before flipping the lock over and passing the pen over to Jisung. As he held the pen in his hand he quickly wrote his message and capped the pen. 

They debated on a spot that had enough room for their lock and not be overcrowded amongst the others. Around the corner from the tower was a small fence, somewhat hidden from the public eye. The two of them agreed that it was the perfect spot, especially since the area had the sunset in the background. 

Felix was the one who put the lock over the bar of the fence and secured it in place with the key. “Perfect.” He said admiring the way their lock was noticeably easy to spot but would soon blend in amongst the other locks that would be put on the fence overtime.

“Can I see what is written on the lock now? I think it’s quite unfair that I am fifty percent owner of the lock and I’m yet to know what’s written on half of it.”

“Go ahead.” Felix gestured to the fence, rocking back and forth on his heels. It seemed that Felix was anxious for some reason but Jisung didn’t notice his nervousness.

He held the lock between his thumb and forefinger to read aloud the message Felix wrote.

Except there was no writing on Felix’s side of the lock. Instead the Australian has drawn two small doodles. One being of the Sun and the other a squirrel. 

Jisung snapped his eyes up to Felix, the younger had a hopeful smile on his face. But in that moment Jisung didn’t register the look of hopefulness, nor did he notice the way Felix’s smile dropped when he frowned in confusion. 

“I don’t get it. Like, I understand that you represent the Sun, I mean- look at you. But what does a chipmunk have to do with anything?” Jisung moved the lock so it was more in view for both of them to see. 

Felix coughed into hand at the first part, cheeks dusting the slightest bit pink. But then rolled his eyes at Jisung’s question. “It’s not a chipmunk, it’s a squirrel.” He stated matter of factly. “You have these cheeks and they’re just so-“ He cups his cheeks to imitate how much larger Jisung’s cheeks are to his own. “- ugh- so cute. You are the physical embodiment of a squirrel.” 

“Am I supposed to take that as a compliment?” He arched one of his eyebrows in question. 

“Obviously. I’ve always thought your cheeks were cute. Usually I compare them to a quokka, but squirrels are easier to draw.” That emitted a snort from Jisung, he shook his head as he tried to keep the blood from rushing to his cheeks. 

Knowing that he hadn’t offended Jisung with his drawing, Felix smiled in triumph and took the lock out of Jisung’s hand and flipped it over. “Now it’s my turn to see what you wrote.”

Jisung felt nervous upon Felix seeing what he wrote, especially because it didn’t have any special meaning like what Felix put. 

F+J

“Very simplistic. I like it.” Felix hummed. 

“Yeah well, I would’ve written more but I didn’t think it would fit.” Which is true. Jisung had a whole monologue of words running through his brain; detailing how exactly he felt for the younger. His feelings weren’t strong enough to be a love confession - or so he thought - but his feelings were enough for him to know that he valued Felix deeply as a friend and he really enjoyed when they held hands earlier before.

“We basically wrote the same thing.” Felix laughed, letting go of the lock and leaving it to hang on the fence. “Maybe it’s a sign.”

Jisung didn’t have time to question what he meant because Felix was suddenly dragging him towards the photo booth. “C’mon, I get pictures in the photobooth from every occasion, and we haven’t gotten one just the two of us which is absolutely criminal.”

The photobooth was empty when they arrived, which was a relief compared to the queue that was there when they had first arrived. Felix gently shoved Jisung into the booth from excitement, his energetic giggles echoing in the booth. “I’m paying so don’t even bother to attempt to pay yourself.” 

Once Felix paid, the pair then spent all of the time of the countdown choosing the colour they wanted the filmstrip to be and the background of the photos. Jisung wanted to go for a traditional and - as Felix bluntly put it - plain background. Whereas Felix opted for images of Seoul and Namsan Tower, which Felix argued made more sense since he needed all the memories he could get of Seoul. Jisung couldn’t argue with that, but he mainly said yes because Felix looked at him with the cutest set of puppy dog eyes that he felt hypnotised when he said yes.

For the first picture they both opted for smiling into the camera, for the second Jisung squished his cheeks together so that his lips were pouted like a fish while Felix stuck his tongue out with his eyes closed. When the timer counted down for the third picture, Jisung struggled to think of what to do, but then he noticed Felix making two finger hearts and decided to do the same.

The fourth and final picture Jisung cupped both of his cheeks, similar to the way Felix had done so, as he smiled widely with his eyes closed until he heard the sound of the camera clicking. He opened his eyes to Felix making the final adjustments to the filmstrip before he stood out of the booth and waited for their pictures to be printed.

Felix grabbed the photostrips and handed one to Jisung, while he pocketed the other. The older looked over the photos for a second time, he thought they were cuter than he expected and already thought about whether to put it on his fridge or on the corkboard in his bedroom. He ran his thumb over the last picture, noticing that way Felix didn’t make a hand gesture or pose for the picture, because only the left side of his face was shown as he looked at Jisung who was unbeknown due to his eyes being closed.

Time had seemed to move quickly because the sun had now set and it was only now that Jisung realised how hungry he was. That and the way his stomach rumbled loud enough for both him and Felix to hear it. Indicating that it was a good time for them to eat. 

-

When they left the restaurant with a stomach full of hamburgers, Jisung didn’t want to go home just yet. It was only eight o’clock in the evening and it wasn’t like either of them had a curfew to stick to.

Felix seemed to be hesitant to speak, he opened and closed his mouth but couldn’t seem to find the words he was looking for. But Jisung had an idea of what he was thinking and hoped he was correct. “Do you want to stay-?”

“Yes.”

A smile slowly made its way onto the younger’s face as he let out what seemed like a sigh of relief. “Great. Me too.”

They simply just walked around the area, talking about anything and everything. It was mainly Felix who did the talking, Jisung was too preoccupied with the way Felix’s hand was swinging back and forth as he walked, occasionally brushing up against Jisung’s own hand. As if silently telling the older to just pluck up the courage and hold his hand.

You can do this Jisung, he told himself. Felix was his friend, he wouldn’t screw up his face in disgust or pull his hand away in fear.

Felix’s hand once again brushed against the back of Jisung’s, he was talking about some instance he came across on the subway and how a similar thing had happened back in Australia. The older was listening despite the raging thoughts inside his head urging him to just hold Felix’s hand. So Jisung did, he took Felix’s smaller hand in his own, intertwined their fingers and looked forward as if nothing just happened.

The quick action made Felix falter in his story, stumbling over his words slightly before he cleared his throat and continued.

They ended up standing leaning against the fence that looked out over the city of Seoul. Their intertwined gloved hands rested in between them, Jisung felt himself constantly looking down at them, and noticed out of the corner of his eye that Felix was doing the same.

“I can’t believe the semester is almost over.” Felix admitted with a sigh, looking out to the bright lights and bustling noise that was Seoul at night.

“Yeah.” Jisung agreed quietly, he hadn’t really spent much time thinking about how the end of the semester was quickly approaching and that meant that Felix would be leaving to go back home to Australia.

“When I applied for my semester abroad I had an idea of what it was going to be like, but I had no idea that I would enjoy myself as much as I did and I would have made friends that I want to remain in contact with for life.”

“That was incredibly cheesy, Lix.” Jisung teased. “Did you really enjoy the semester that much?”

Felix turned his head towards Jisung. “Of course.” The smile on his face faltered slightly, he swallowed as he continued. “I’m excited to go home, I miss my family so much, but then I-I’ll miss you- miss everyone when I’m gone.”

Jisung’s heart jumped a bit at that, it was without a doubt that Felix was the person Jisung would miss the most, even more so than the friends he made and left behind during his exchange in Malaysia. “I’ll miss you too Lix, but I know that we’ll see each other again. I mean you can always visit Korea again and we can meet up, maybe.”

“Yeah, I’d like that.” Felix said softly. “There’s still things in Korea that I’d wanna come back for. Things that are gonna pain me to say goodbye to.”

“Like soju.”

Felix snorted loudly at the comment. “Yeah and soju.” He paused for a moment, he bit his lip in thought before he added. “And you.”

Jisung held his breath at Felix’s confession, he could tell the younger was looking at him but he refused to look at him before he could make sense of Felix’s words. 

He turned his head to face Felix, the Australian seemed apprehensive to see as to how Jisung would react. His eyes were wide and curious, head tilted in anticipation as his lips were turned downward, like he was expecting to hear the worst possible answer. Ready to prepare for the worst. 

Jisung didn’t even realise that he was basically analysing Felix’s face, making little comments in his head about each of his features. Like how Felix’s freckles were scattered across his cheekbones but were also dotted on his brow bone. Or how Felix’s top lip was shaped like a heart, and his bottom lip was larger and plump, and together Felix had lips that looked soft and kissable.

Wait...

The crush that Jisung had on Felix could only be that, it wasn’t fair to either of them to start something more. Not when said friend was moving back home to another continent in a matter of weeks. Plus Jisung was too much of a chicken to do something as courageous as kissing the person he called his soulmate.

He must’ve spent too much time thinking and doubting himself because Felix let out a sigh and slowly removed his hand from Jisung’s.

Fuck, he’d messed up. Why couldn’t Jisung just break free from everything that was holding him back and do something that he wanted to do in the moment for himself and not worry about the consequences.

This is Felix we are talking about. The same Felix that came in this semester and completely changed the way Jisung viewed himself and everything else around him.

The same Felix who made Jisung not care about what others thought of him as he let himself go in a club. 

Felix who made Jisung face his fears and take a risk by riding on the back of a scooter in the early hours of the morning.

His friend who made him experience sparks from the gentlest of touches and comforted him when he needed it.

His soulmate who made him realise his love of singing again and have fun doing what he loved with his friends.

Felix brought Jisung out of his shell; made him expand his circle of friends and try new things. He made him happy just being around him, and Jisung wasn’t going to let himself shy away from something that he knew he would regret.

He reached out and placed his hand on Felix’s jaw and turned his head to face him, he couldn’t tell if his hand was shaking or not but he chose to ignore it and focus on what was important. As expected, Felix’s eyes widened but didn’t pull away from Jisung’s touch, instead he did the opposite and leaned into his hand.

Jisung took a deep breath as he brushed his thumb over the constellation of freckles that resided on his cheek. “Lix, can I-”

“Yes.” He blurted out, louder than intended. “ Please. ” He whispered, closing his eyes 

As Jisung connected their lips, he wasn’t expecting fireworks or sparks, but somehow there was so much more. He discovered that Felix’s lips not only looked soft but also felt soft against his own. Subconsciously, he placed his other hand on Felix’s waist and pulled him closer to himself to the point that they were chest to chest through their thick winter jackets.

“ Wow. ” Felix breathed out in a daze, his smile had become wider than what Jisung had ever seen. Then he released a giggle, and covered his mouth with his hand, Jisung had never really seen Felix shy until that moment and he found it absolutely adorable. As if the boy in front of him couldn’t get any cuter, seeing Felix beaming with the tip of his nose red from the cold and his cheeks cold because of their kiss; he was speechless.

He didn't know what to do, he was just standing there with a hand on his lips completely baffled that he’d just kissed Felix and that Felix kissed him back. “I-er-”

“You’re a good kisser.” Felix admitted softly.

“Wanna do it again?” Jisung didn’t know where this confidence came from but he wanted it to stay, there was nothing like a confidence boost like a compliment from a pretty boy.

Felix laughed at him but fortunately for Jisung, he raised his hand to the back of Jisung’s neck and pulled him closer to reconnect their lips. This time Jisung was used to the feeling of Felix’s lips, but he still struggled to keep up with the fast pace to which Felix was kissing him. Like the younger was kissing him out of his own eagerness and desperation. 

But Jisung didn’t mind at all, he wouldn’t complain about Felix kissing him, even when he accidentally bit down on Jisung’s bottom lip or when their teeth clashed together making them both giggle into the kiss.

Jisung pulled back from their kiss, his eyelashes fluttered open slowly, Felix seemed to have the same dazed look on his face that Jisung felt like he had. 

He leaned forward and rested his forehead against Felix’s, breathing deeply through his nose to get his breath back to normal. It sounded cheesy but Jisung thought in that moment that time stood still, that the world was just him and Felix in the centre of Seoul in their own little bubble and that no one around them mattered because they had each other.

Their hands were intertwined at their sides, swaying gently side to side as they basked in the feeling of one another. Jisung gave the other a quick kiss to his cheek, he usually wasn’t this bashful and confident when it came to other boys but there was something about Felix that brought out the best in him.

“Now I feel the slightest bit happier going home knowing that I know what it’s like to kiss you.”

“Wow, Lix, way to dampen the mood.” Jisung rolled his eyes playfully, though his words had some truth to them.

“I’m sorry.” Felix rushed out. He planted a quick peck to Jisung’s lips. “There, all better.”

“You’re lucky you’re cute.” 

Felix beamed from the compliment. 

The rest of their evening is spent with Felix and Jisung giggling as they talked under the stars. Their gloved hands were intertwined as they huddled together to take in each other’s warmth. Felix would point out random things that he could see. But Jisung never saw them, because, even with the beautiful city of Seoul in front of him, Jisung only had eyes for Felix.

It didn’t take their friends very long to notice the difference in the way Jisung and Felix were around each other. Well, Felix had always been a fan of skinship whereas Jisung was more subtle, but now, Jisung openly initiated skinship with the blond Australian.

The time Jisung kissed Felix on the lips as he got up to leave and order for everyone at the coffee shop on campus caused absolute chaos amongst their friend group.

“ Thank fuck. I didn’t know how much longer I could watch Lix pine over Jisung these past months. Honestly, it was so painful, I was very obvious when I dropped hints.” Chan said in relief as he slumped back into his chair.

Seungmin nodded in agreement. “ Same. Though it was fun teasing Felix about his crush on Jisung.”

And that was the day Jisung discovered that Felix had a crush on him since the day they met.

Even though they had finals; and it was Jisung’s final semester before graduating and had to prioritise his grades, they still managed to find time to go on dates. Felix loved taking Jisung to all the cute couple cafes and took multiple pictures of him throughout the dates. They hadn’t put a label on what they were, they were just Jisung and Felix; who held hands and kissed a lot and somewhat more that one time at Jisung’s apartment after the goodbye party for the exchange students. 

Despite all of that, Felix leaving Korea was inevitable. Jisung tried to keep it to the back of his head but he had to face the truth at some point. The only thing that kept him from breaking down into tears was the hope that one day Felix would come back to Korea to see him, but no one knew when that would be. 

“What’s that big head thinking about?” Felix pressed his index finger to the centre of Jisung’s forehead to pull him out of his melancholy thoughts.

They were lying in Jisung’s bed where they had been the entire day after deciding it was too cold to venture outside and preferring to stay indoors for once. Felix turned onto his side to look at Jisung, resting his head on his hand.

Jisung shook his head and the negative thoughts along with it. “Just thinking about how I want fried chicken for dinner, but my favourite restaurant is closed on a Monday.” He didn’t see the point of admitting to Felix his actual thoughts, not wanting him to get upset as he probably had his own conflicting thoughts about leaving Korea.

Felix tutted in fake annoyance. “That does sound bad, sometimes the things that we want don’t always fit in with our schedule and we have to wait until the future to have it again.” Something told Jisung that Felix wasn’t talking about fried chicken. The Australian gently stroked the slope of Jisung’s nose, which, admittedly was not something he was used to but he found the gesture oddly comforting. “Well do you know what I want?”

“What?”

“ A kiss.”

Jisung tilted his head to face him, Felix was looking down with a smirk adorning his face, his blond hair flopped on his forehead. For the upteenth time Jisung felt butterflies swarming inside himself, how could he say no to such a request from such a perfect boy?

Cupping his cheek delicately, like Felix was the most expensive piece of fine China, Jisung leaned up to kiss the boy who made him live a little.

+1

It had been a month since Felix left Korea for his home in Australia. Jisung went with him and Chan to see them off at the airport. He hugged Chan first, stepping up on his tiptoes to hug the older Australian. Chan pulled Jisung into a tight hug, squeezing him while rocking both of them from side to side. Despite Chan not being the person Jisung was closest to during the semester and only seeing the older when they hung out in their group of eight, he would admit that he would really miss Chan. He would miss his slightly crude jokes and his smile that got all the girl’s attention and the way he protected Felix like an older brother.

But Jisung would also miss how perceptive Chan was, as once he let go of Jisung he looked between him and Felix, sensing that the two wanted to be alone to say their goodbyes. “ I’m gonna go...that way .” He pointed his thumb over his shoulder, not even knowing where he was pointing to, Chan just wanted to separate himself from the pair to let them have their moment. “ You guys take your time, it was nice meeting you Jisung. ” Chan took a few steps backwards and winked at Jisung before turning around and pretending he knew where he was going.

Jisung slowly turned to face Felix, the younger slid his backpack off his shoulder and placed it on the ground next to him. He held his arms out and lifted the corner of his mouth up as he waited for Jisung to walk towards him. The older wasted no time and ran towards Felix, knocking the Australian back a few steps with the force he used as he collided with his chest.

He wrapped his arms around the other’s waist, revelling in the warmth that Felix radiated. It was just like the time they hugged at Namsan tower, despite it being the beginning of Winter and Jisung could barely feel his hands even with the gloves, he felt heat bloom from within his chest when he was wrapped up in Felix’s arms.

Felix sniffed. “You give good hugs.” He squeezed Jisung closer to himself, his hand that wasn’t splayed out in between Jisung’s shoulder blades was playing with the hairs at his nape. 

Jisung hummed in response. To be honest, he wasn’t one hundred percent listening to Felix, he had his head rested on Felix’s shoulder, his eyes closed as he thought about his semester with Felix and how much he was going to miss him.

“You were my favourite part of the semester.”

Jisung hummed again. Felix smelled like strawberries and honey, why hadn’t Jisung noticed this before? At what point did Felix stop smelling like cheap detergent and start smelling sweet? Jisung tucked his head into the crook of Felix’s neck, not even hiding that he was openly smelling the younger to try and engrain it into his memory.

“You’re not listening to me, are you?” 

Once again, Jisung hummed, he opened his eyes as Felix pulled away, though with some resistance as Jisung was unwilling to let go. Felix looked at him with an raised eyebrow and a lopsided smile.

“What? Did you say something?” Jisung asked, now wishing that he wasn’t so absorbed in Felix and their memories of the past instead of their last moments together in the present. 

Felix rolled his eyes but there was no bite because he did so with a smile. “Nothing. I just said that I’m happy I met you Han Jisung.”

“You know, I told myself that I wasn’t going to cry today, but you’re really fucking pushing it Felix.” Jisung said through a sniffle, no tears were shed but he could feel the backs of his eyes start to sting. He blinked furiously for a couple seconds until he felt like he could keep the waterworks at bay. 

Felix laughed, light and airy, and brushed his thumbs under Jisung’s eyes. Leaning forward he closed the gap between them and connected their lips, Jisung tried to forget that he didn’t know when his next kiss with Felix would be, that’s if there would even be a next kiss. This kiss could be the last kiss that Jisung would share with the younger. 

Having that thought in the back of his mind, Jisung grabbed Felix to pull him closer. He grasped onto Felix’s winter jacket as he moved his lips against his. One more time Jisung would feel how soft Felix’s lips are, one more time having Felix’s hands holding his hips to keep him steady, one more time threading his fingers through Felix’s blond hair. 

Jisung kissed Felix until he felt like his lips would bruise, he didn’t care to think about the fact that they were in public where people could watch them, they were welcome to. He kissed Felix until he tasted tears drop into their kiss, joining the combination of the taste of Jisung’s mint chewing gum and Felix’s tongue in Jisung’s mouth. 

The older pulled back slightly, confused by the tears, he didn’t realise he had started crying. He put his hand up to wipe it across his cheek to get rid of the tear tracks that stained his face. 

Except when Jisung did so he was even more confused to find that his cheeks showed no evidence of him shedding any tears.

Jisung frowned in confusion, that didn’t make any sense, if he wasn’t the one who was crying then- Jisung’s eyes softened in realisation, as he looked up he saw as Felix bit his bottom lip probably to keep more tears from flowing. 

“Hey. Hey. Why are you crying?” Jisung tried his best to comfort Felix, he usually wasn’t good at comforting people if they were upset or crying but seeing someone he cared about shedding tears made Jisung want to try and do everything in his power to comfort Felix. He cupped the younger’s cheeks in his hands and wiped under his eyes.

Felix sniffed. “I don’t want to leave you.”

“Please don’t cry. I’m not worth your tears.” Jisung said softly.

“Jisung you are worth my tears and so much more.” He managed to say through his sniffles.

Now Jisung actually did want to cry, the reality that he was saying goodbye to Felix settling in. He placed a quick peck to Felix’s lips, then another, and another. “I’m not going to say goodbye.” He tried to keep his voice steady, any minute now he knew he would lose his composure and also break down into tears.

“Okay.” Felix whispered against his lips. “No goodbyes.”

Eventually Chan came back over to the pair to tell Felix that they had to hurry up so that they could make their flight ontime. Jisung was reluctant to let go of Felix, wanting their hug to be everlasting, and Felix thought the same, based on the way he squeezed Jisung until it almost hurt.

But unfortunately Jisung had to step away and watch as Felix put his backpack back on and walk away to go to his flight gate. Jisung held back his tears until he was back in his apartment alone.

Ever since then, Jisung spent his time focusing on his graduation, the event kept his mind off the fact that he missed Felix terribly. Anything Jisung did reminded him of Felix; like when he would see couples drive past him on electric scooters as he was on his way home. Or when he ate a slice of cheesecake and expected to see a second fork on the plate. Heck, one time Jisung looked out of his window at the sun and got reminded of Felix’s radiant smile; that day Jisung went back to bed and wallowed under his covers.

Spontaneously, one day Jisung went back to Namsan tower. The temperatures had dropped considerably since the last time he was here with Felix, so Jisung gripped onto the hand warmers in his pockets. He stood in the same spot where he was with Felix, where the two of them shared their first kiss. The memories made his cheeks heat up even with the cold winter temperature. He took a picture of the view and sent it to the younger telling him that he missed him. Felix replied with a crying face emoji and a ‘ miss you more’.

Jisung graduated with his friends and family by his side, proud of him for sticking with his education and coming out of it with a degree. Of course Jisung was sad that not everyone was there to celebrate with him, but then Felix sent him a selfie of him smiling while making a hand heart and Jisung’s mood instantly lifted.

Ever since then Jisung had been feeling beyond bored, he missed having Felix by his side and going on day trips. The Australian had come into Jisung’s life, changed his entire perspective on life and left. Before he met Felix, Jisung would never say yes to something he had doubts about, or not think about what others thought about him. And he would certainly never take the plunge and kiss the boy he had strong feelings for.

Jisung used to think that he needed Felix to be there to make those decisions for him, that it was Felix who made him an outgoing person. But since Felix had gone back to Australia, Jisung realised that; yes, Felix was by his side when he chose the other path and made decisions and felt feelings that he wasn’t used to, but it was Jisung himself who made his own decisions, Felix just so happened to be with him when he made them.

Now, Jisung could do whatever he wanted, he didn’t want to be stuck in his apartment, not making friends, not living his life. He had finished university, so now was the perfect time for him to explore himself before he had to come back to the reality that was the adult world.

That’s why, when Jisung glanced over at the 4-cut film strip of him at Felix that they took at Namsan Tower that hung up on his corkboard; alongside many of his other memories from the past four months and smiled because for once he was going to do something for him. He then turned back to his laptop and absolutely had no regret when he booked the one way ticket to Sydney, Australia.